OVERALL the budget for the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources will fall by 6.5% next year from €536 million to €501m.

Donal Hickey reports on Ireland’s Atlantic oil basins.

THE projected cost of cleaning up the former Irish Steel/Ispat site in Cork Harbour has rocketed in recent years, from an estimated €30 million in 2004 to €300m today.

I WISH to expand on the reference to the RNLI in Peter Levy’s column headlined ‘Beach safety demands a closer look’ (Irish Examiner County supplement, June 17).

FURTHER delays in carrying out long-awaited pier improvements in Kerry can be expected if the Government continues to drip feed money for such work.

CHAMBERS Ireland has called on the Government to deliver on its three-year-old commitment to introduce a post code system in Ireland.

THE transfer of the fisheries portfolio to the renamed Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is an important milestone that can herald a new start in modernising the industry, according to an industry spokesman.

THE Government has unveiled plans to build a high-voltage interconnector with Britain, it emerged yesterday.

The Government has unveiled plans to build a high-voltage inter-connector with Britain, it emerged today.

The Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Noel Dempsey, announced today that consultants CDM have been appointed to carry out a major study for the management and remediation of the Avoca mining area.

THE chief executive of Bord Gáis, Gerry Walsh is to retire this summer.

AS we enter the post drift-net era we must not rush to alter the point of slaughter, but rather exercise the precautionary approach.

PROVIDENCE Resources has agreed a further farm-out agreement concerning part of its mining assets in the Celtic Sea off the south coast.

TEAGASC and the Department of Agriculture and Food have come together to organise the first National Bio-Energy Conference.

SOFTWARE consultants Insight was awarded a €900,000 contract to renew their software testing and quality assurance services to the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, it was announced yesterday.

NTR subsidiary Bioverda revealed yesterday that it was not awarded excise relief last year despite announcing a proposed €50 million biofuel production plant in Cork Harbour.

IRELAND’S energy market is too small to support the kind of competition that results in cheaper prices, according to a Government green paper on energy.

INTERNATIONAL companies given licences this month to explore potentially lucrative sections of Irish water for oil and gas will each have to pay less than €10,000 a year for the privilege.

NINE companies have applied to run the two-year digital terrestrial television (DTT) trial.

EXPLORATION firm Island Oil & Gas says it has made a significant gas discovery off the Cork coast.

THE Minister of State at the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, John Browne, has announced grant aid of €13.3 million for several aquaculture projects.

The Television Licence Fee is to increase by €3 to €158 from October 1 this year, it was announced today.

No employees at Bord Iascaigh Mhara are willing to decentralise to Clonakilty, union leaders claimed today despite plans for a €20m headquarters for the body in the town.

THE group protesting against the proposed gas pipeline in Mayo will campaign against Fianna Fáil in marginal constituencies at the next General Election.

INDEPENENT electricity provider Energia has been awarded a major contract to supply power to 101 Government offices nationwide.

The Government is to launch a major marketing campaign to encourage small business and householders to preserve energy.

THOUSANDS of householders are snapping up grants under a Government scheme aimed at encouraging green living.

MINISTERS are to finally end the scandal of non-payment of rents for leasing the country’s coastline which is costing taxpayers millions of euro a year.

Just 16% of Irish internet households have access to broadband compared to the EU average of 48%, it emerged today.

Marine Minister Pat ‘the Cope’ Gallagher was today appointed to succeed Ivor Callely in the Transport Department while Meath TD Mary Wallace has been surprisingly promoted as junior minister at the Department of Agriculture and Food, it was confirmed.

The Taoiseach Bertie Ahern is expected to announce a minor reshuffle of his junior ministers later today.

THE Government was urged yesterday to ensure the Ryder Cup is broadcast on terrestrial television as the battle over broadcasting rights warmed up.

Neans McSweeney reports how South-East Regional Airport turned despair into triumph.

Consultants assessing the risks of the controversial Corrib gas project in Mayo have called for pressure in the onshore section of the pipe to be restricted, it emerged today.

IN future, only those applicants with degree (preferably PhD) qualifications from the Pacific Western University in the US will be considered for some high-flying Government positions.

Junior Minister Pat 'the Cope' Gallagher has denied claims of a serious dispute between himself and Minister Noel Dempsey.

Legislation to implement EU fishing policy into Irish law appears to be creating divisions with the Irish Government.

TRANSPORT Minister Martin Cullen has promised that extra funding for implementation of the Transport 21 blueprint will be announced in next month’s Budget on top of the overall 1.5% increase in spending for the sector confirmed yesterday.

SPENDING on ports, marine safety and the coast guard will increase by over €40 million next year.

The €2.2bn funding for the country’s infrastructure is the first step on the road to completing the Government’s radical Transport 21 plan, it was claimed tonight.

Barry McSweeney is a very able performer. The Irish Examiner has never questioned his ability, but it has questioned the manner in which he was initially appointed as the Government’s chief science adviser without the job ever being advertised.

BY dropping his two-letter title and moving the embattled chief science adviser swiftly sideways last night, the Government attempted to dodge mounting criticism over his dubious academic credentials.

Enterprise Minister Micheál Martin’s announcement on behalf of the Government raises even more questions than it answers.

The Government is transferring its Chief Science Advisor to a new position in light of a controversy that he obtained a bogus degree from an online US university.